


at summer's end

by saltedpin



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: F/F, Fantine fix-it fic, Mentions of past domestic violence, not a fix-it for Valjean, technically not an OC but close enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 05:51:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17575034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltedpin/pseuds/saltedpin
Summary: Fantine meets a stranger on the road to Montreuil-sur-Mer.Fantine fix-it fic.





	at summer's end

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Apathy, rabbit_habits and Iberiandoctor for all their help with betaing and advice! :D 
> 
> All mistakes and/or inconsistencies are mine.

Fantine is often too weary to raise her head as she walks – Cosette, asleep on her back, is no great burden, but she has not eaten today or the day before, and she sometimes finds herself feeling so faint she has to sit down before her knees wobble so badly that she falls.

It is easier, anyway, to keep her head low; that way, she does not have to see the endless stretch of the road in front of her, reminding her of how far yet she has to walk. 

She is, at least, dry-eyed now. Oh, she has wept – she has wept until her eyes have felt like stones in her head, until she has felt that her heart will break. But there is very little good that weeping will do her – it will not put money in her pocket or clothes on her back. It will not make Monsieur Tholomyès answer her letters. 

And she will not weep in front of Cosette – Cosette, who has slept so sweetly and so soundly on her back, her warm cheek resting on the nape of Fantine’s neck, her little girl’s curls coming free of her ribbons and tickling against her skin. When they had first begun their journey, Fantine had sometimes sung a little song to carry them on their way, but now her throat is too dry for that; she has not had water to drink since this morning.

That, at least, will soon be remedied – if she can keep up this pace, she will be in Montfermeil by nightfall, and there she can have a drink and buy some bread. She has met some kindly shopkeepers on her way, men who will sell her burned loaves or dropped pastries for only a few sous; if it had not been for them, Fantine does not know what she and Cosette would have done.

Perhaps it will be the same in Montfermeil, Fantine thinks as she stares down at her feet, watching the small clouds of dust they throw up at every step. Perhaps it will be a town full of kind people, and perhaps someone will see her and give her some bread, or perhaps even a little meat – she will give it to Cosette, of course, even if her mouth waters at the thought, but – 

“What a pretty little girl you have there.”

Fantine jerks her head up at the sound of a voice so close at hand. There is a woman walking by her side – her dark hair is pulled up beneath a white handkerchief, the way she has seen washerwomen wear it to keep it out of the way, and she is tall, sturdy, her forearms thick, and her hands and fingers red and chapped. Fantine does not know how long it has been since she last lifted her head; she has no idea how long this woman might have been walking ahead of her, throwing up her own little clouds of dust beneath her feet.

She opens her mouth to reply, after hesitating only a moment. On another day, she might be a little wary after all that has happened, but today she cannot be – the woman is smiling, and no one who has ever seen Cosette has been able to resist telling Fantine what a sweet girl she is.

“Thank you,” Fantine says. “Isn’t she lovely? And I have been travelling for days now, and she has never cried, not even when the coach jostled her. You never met a sweeter girl. I’ve been walking for half the day, and even then, she has been quiet as a mouse.”

“Half the day!” The woman’s astonishment is plain. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“Not much,” Fantine admits. “But I don’t need very much, after all. When I was young I was used to living on very little. But I suppose you don’t think about these things so much when you are a child.”

The woman nods. “You may be right – though perhaps I was a very hungry child. I seem to recall often asking my father for more to eat. But he was only a wheelwright – they are not paid much – so we often went hungry.”

Fantine glances up at her. The woman’s eyes are dark brown and large, and the skin of her face is rough – she is a working woman of some kind, it is clear. Looking at her now, Fantine wonders if her own skin would look as rough if she had not run off to Paris and met Monsieur Tholomyès, if her arms would be so thick had she stayed in Montreuil-sur-Mer. 

Perhaps this woman, too, had once been a beauty, she thinks. She is older than Fantine, though not by much – her skin might be worn and her hands chapped, but there is still a loveliness in her eyes, and her lips are the shape of Cupid’s bow. As Fantine looks at her, she sees there is a shadow beneath her eye – and then she sees a dark blue smudge along her jaw, a red welt below, on the side of her throat –

The woman ducks her head suddenly, and Fantine realises she has been staring. She drops her eyes, biting her lip. She is reminded suddenly of a girl she had once shared a room with, who had complained to Fantine that the man she had been seeing had given her the back of his hand after she had laughed too loudly at dinner and, he said, made a spectacle. The girl had had to cover the mark on the side of her face with powder for two weeks afterward, and Fantine had thought at the time how lucky she was that she had Monsieur Tholomyès, who would never do such a thing to her.

“I am heading to Montfermeil. Will you stop there too?” the woman asks suddenly, looking back at Fantine.

“Oh, no,” Fantine says. “No, I am returning to my hometown.” She swallows, uncertain of how much she should say. She is a woman alone, with a child on her back. Passers-by may think whatever they like, but they can only make guesses. It will be different once she reaches Montreuil, she knows, but she has not decided what she will do about that just yet. 

“Your husband is there waiting for you?”

Perhaps she hesitates just a moment too long; perhaps the woman sees something in her eyes. Her wounds are still too fresh for her to hide them completely. Whatever the case, there is a flash of understanding in the woman’s eyes, and in the end Fantine says nothing at all. 

They walk together in awkward silence, and Fantine thinks to herself that they have both seen each other’s secrets now; it seems strange that they should understand each other when they have only just met, but then, how many times has Fantine passed someone by on the street and thought to herself, _Ah, that girl is unlucky in love,_ or _She is on her way to see her admirer, you can see it in her eyes,_ or even _That girl will be happier once she is home and has had time to read the letter she has received._

There is silence for a short time, until the woman says suddenly, “But I have been very rude. My name is Lise. What is yours?”

“Fantine,” she says, “and my little girl is Euphrasie, but I call her Cosette.”

“A very pretty name. It suits her.” 

Fantine cannot help the burst of light in her heart. She has had so little happiness recently, and kind words from a stranger – or only slightly less than a stranger – are enough to make her smile. 

“Do you have children of your own?”

Again, she catches something in Lise’s eyes a moment before she looks away, and suddenly she regrets having asked.

“I do not,” Lise says. “I was, at one time....” She trails off, before taking a quick, sharp breath. “Though I have sometimes wished for them – especially when I first... but no, I do not. I do love them though – children make a house merry, don’t you think? Even when there is very little to be merry about.”

They lapse into silence, making their way side by side along the road, but Lise’s words stay with Fantine as they walk, echoing softly in her heart. 

 

*

 

They arrive in Montfermeil before the sun is down, and Fantine knows she cannot yet afford to stop. She can have no delays on her journey. When Lise halts outside the baker’s shop, Fantine stops too. 

“This is the end of my journey,” Lise says, and Fantine wonders that she hears a little regret in her voice. Lise had carried Cosette a short way when the girl had woken and started to struggle, but Fantine had not dared set her down on the road: Cosette’s little slippers were threadbare already, and she doubted they would survive three steps on the hard road. Lise had carried her easily, and Cosette had looked almost as small as a doll in her large arms. She sets Cosette down on the ground now, and the girl blinks at her as if surprised at being let go. “Goodbye, Cosette – it was very nice to meet you. You will be good for your mother on the rest of your journey, won’t you?”

Cosette only nods slowly – she does not often talk – and Fantine swallows as she sees how reluctantly she walks away. As she takes her daughter’s small, warm hand in hers, she hesitates, biting her lip. She knows she must move on, but she suddenly finds herself desperate to delay her departure.

“Your people are here?” Fantine asks, as Lise stands on the doorstep of the bakery, her hand on the doorframe. Fantine looks at the loaves of bread in the window and wonders if she might scrape fifteen sous together to buy a loaf that might see her through the rest of her journey.

“In a way,” Lise says. “The baker’s wife died many years ago, and his daughter married and went to live in Paris – I knew her there. I will take up her place in the bakery, since she does not wish to return, and the baker has no other children who might help him about the place.” She pauses. “Meeting the daughter was very fortunate for me.”

Fantine swallows, looking at the bread and remembering the way Cosette had become calm once more when Lise had held her. 

_If only... if only...._

“Madame,” she blurts suddenly, still not completely sure what it is she intends to say. Despite everything, Fantine still believes in Providence; she does not think she would have met Lise on the road, if not for some purpose. “I… wonder if you might take care of Cosette for me here, if only for a little while.”

She bites her lip as soon as the words are out; Lise only blinks at her in surprise. Fantine finds herself rushing on, filling the silence with more words. 

“You see, I cannot take my daughter with me. I must find work, and with a child it is not possible. People will say all sorts of things. But I believe it was the good God who put me in your path today – you see how calm Cosette is with you! It is like she loves you already. And I will send money to keep her as soon as I can. And it’s as you say, children make a house merry, and Cosette is no trouble at all! Please, will you keep her for me, until I am able to return?”

Lise does not answer immediately, and Fantine is aware of her heart racing in her breast; if Lise refuses her, she does not know what she will do. There is still a long journey ahead of her, and to take Cosette to Montreuil….

“I did not tell the baker I would have a child with me,” Lise says softly, and Fantine feels her fragile hope shatter. It seems, then, that she has been wrong, and there is no help for her anywhere after all.

“But... I do not think he will turn her away, if I tell him she has come with me. If I explain I am looking after her for a dear friend.”

Later, Fantine cannot remember what she had said, how desperately she had thanked Lise, or even the moment when she had handed her daughter over to her, caressing the girl’s beautiful curls only once before she turned away. Any more than that and she did not think she would have been able to leave her, to at last turn away and begin once more on her journey.

She does remember how she had wept the moment she turned the corner, though, the moment she was out of sight of the baker’s shop. But even that had been senseless; she had barely been aware of how she had been crying, of the people in the street who stopped to watch her as she passed. Later, she had only remembered passing an inn and seeing two little girls playing in the yard, and hoping that they and Cosette might be friends.

 

*

 

“You will be very pleased with your daughter, I hope. She is very merry and very pretty. The people here call her the Lark, because she often sings, and she walks about eating the little pieces of bread Monsieur Gerard, the baker, gives her. She is treated very kindly by everyone, and she is very kind in return. I think you would be very proud of her. She has found a friend in the innkeeper’s daughter, who is her own age, and they are often together, playing at this and that.”

Fantine sits and listens as the public writer reads her her letter, his voice flat, his eyes red-rimmed and his breath still reeking of drink. But it does not stop her heart from swelling with pride within her as she hears of how beloved her little Cosette is or prevent her fingers from twisting in her skirt as she stares down into her lap. 

“I feel I must tell you though that little Cosette has begun to call me ‘Maman’, but I have been careful, I promise, to tell her that I am not her maman, but that her maman loves her very dearly even if she must be away just now. She is very solemn when I tell her this, and I believe she understands. How I wish you could see her.” 

Later that evening, by the light of the stub of her candle, Fantine traces her fingers over the letters. There are some words she can make out – _maman, Cosette_ – and for a moment she fancies she feels small darts of warmth in the tips of her fingers, despite the chill of the night air. When her eyes drop to the bottom of the letter, to the rough, inky ‘ _L_ ’ that curves across the bottom of the page, she stares at it for several minutes, before folding the letter and placing it under the folded apron she is using for a pillow. 

She is distracted at her work the next day – her fingers are clumsy, the beads slipping from her grasp. Next to her, she is vaguely aware of Anna, her workmate, _tsking_ impatiently, but she hardly hears it. Her mind is elsewhere, caught up with thinking. _Would it really be so terrible for Cosette to call Lise ‘Maman’? She is so kind, and she takes such good care of her. And Cosette is so pretty, so sweet – why, anyone would be pleased to think of her as theirs, would they not?_

When she next visits the public letter writer, she tries to put these thoughts into words – tries to tell him to write to Lise that she does not want her to correct Cosette the next time she calls her her mother. But the words won’t come to her, and she finds herself twisting her skirt in her fingers as she tries to find a way to say what she wishes to say. 

“Please write – please write that it is my joy to hear that Cosette is happy,” she finally stutters. “Please write that I wish I could – that soon, I will –”

Fantine swallows, staring into her lap. How can she put into words the dream that swells within her heart? It seems impossible – she barely dares to dream it at all. Beneath her fingers she feels the softness of Cosette’s hair; she is smiling, and Lise, the woman who has taken care of her daughter when she could not –

“Please,” she finally says, her voice very soft. “Please simply write that I am happy.”

 

*

 

The mayor’s fifty francs are heavy in her hand. 

She looks down at them, shiny against her dirty palm, and curls her fingers around them, closing her eyes – and oh, it is so tempting to fling the coins down on the floor and spit on them, but she does not. Instead, she simply closes her fingers around them even more tightly, letting the voice in her head that tells her she should be grateful drown out her anger. The mayor has given her the fifty francs because he is kind – everyone says so, and so it must be true. Who is she to turn away his kindness? Who is she to refuse it? 

Later, when she goes to the public writer, her words spill out of her in a rush – “Please, do not turn Cosette out – I cannot send money just now, but I will in only a little while, I will pay you in full, if only you would be so kind, for it seems to me you have come to love her just a little bit –”

She does not know what else to say, so she sits and stares down at her hands, curiously still in her lap, until the letter writer clears his throat and says, “I have other people to see.”

“Of course,” Fantine says quickly, eyes darting up. “I... perhaps you could simply write that... that I will send the money as soon as I can, and please, will she reply and tell me that Cosette is safe with her, and that she will not be turned out?”

The letter writer scribbles something down, and Fantine gives him his fee. The air is cold when she steps outside, the wind cutting into her face. But winter is dying, and spring will soon follow, and her heart lifts at the thought that the snow will melt from the streets and the sun will shine again.

_I must have work._

If she is to support herself and send money to her daughter, then of course, she must have work. 

Well, houses need servants, and perhaps, in a little while, she might pay down her debts, and perhaps, perhaps....

Pulling her thin shawl about her, Fantine squares her shoulders and goes out into the street.

 

*

 

When the letter comes, she can barely listen to its contents as the public writer reads it out to her – at first, her fear seems to swallow her up so much that she cannot believe she has heard correctly. She asks the writer to read it again, trying to breathe, to calm her soul and understand what is being said to her.

“Of course we will not turn out Cosette – she is very necessary to us here now. It has been a long while since the baker had children about and he has missed it. He is not cruel or mean, and though he sometimes has a harsh word for the little girl when she gets underfoot, I know he loves her almost as much as I do. Send the money when you can – we can manage for a month without, but rest assured, I will not let any harm come to your little Cosette.”

Fantine sits still, the moment that follows seeming to stretch out before her. For the first time in weeks, she can see hope ahead of her. _Cosette will be safe – she will not be put on the streets._ She repeats the words to herself until she believes them, until she can feel the cold fingers that have clenched around her heart these past few weeks begin to relinquish their grip. Fantine has not been able to secure any work as a servant, but she has begun to sew shirts – it earns almost nothing, but it keeps her in bread, just barely. She has begun to set a little aside to send, which means she has eaten only every other day recently, but it is enough. She has been too sick with worry to eat much in any case.

“There is more, if you want to hear it?” The public writer sounds peevish. Fantine can only bring herself to nod. “Furthermore, if you find yourself able, we would welcome you to come here and join us. You would need to support yourself, but there is sometimes work to be had. I know Cosette would love to see you. She asks me often when her maman will come. What shall I tell her?”

The letter writer folds the paper and passes it to Fantine. She takes it, opens it, and stares down at the letters, which to her are nothing more than a jumble on the page. How is it that they seem to contain her whole heart?

“What do you want me to reply?” the letter writer asks, taking up his pen.

“I... no, nothing yet,” Fantine says. “Later. Later, I will know what to reply.”

 

*

 

Her fingers ache even as they dart back and forth, passing her needle through the rough-hewn cloth; it is not so cold, and yet she barely feels it when the needle slips and pricks her. A bead of bright red blood swells on the tip of her finger, and Fantine hisses in a breath, lifting it to her lips. The pain comes a moment later, a deep, aching throb that seems to echo in her heart. It is a waste of precious moments – precious moments when she could be finishing a button, laying the shirt aside and picking up the next one. Besides which, the monotony of the work is only bearable so long as she does not stop to think about it; if she stops, her despair has time to creep over her, to work its way into the corners of her heart, and then she is not certain she will not tip the basket of shirts out of the window and into the mud below. It is a wild thought, but sometimes she feels wild – she does not know one second to the next if she will laugh or cry.

She has sold her hair – it had been very hard at first to wake up in the morning without feeling its weight, but it has allowed her to pay off a little more of her debts. She is edging closer to being able to make the journey to see Cosette, to thank Lise and the baker for everything they have done for her. She has paid down her rent. She has only twelve francs left to pay of her debts to the furniture seller. She has no notion of how she will ever discharge it, but by sleeping only a little, by eating only a little bread every two days, she has managed to put aside a little money every week. It is misery, but so long as there is any chance she may see Cosette again, she finds that – most days – she can bear it.

Fantine pulls her finger from her mouth, her warm blood coating her tongue, and stares down at the little speck of red that still lingers there. It is strange to think that inside, she still has a heartbeat, still has all this bright red blood within her. Sometimes she feels so brittle and hollow that she feels that she will break, but then she remembers her dear Cosette, remembers that when she has finished her sewing she will go and run her fingers over the letters she keeps in a little box by her mattress, and then she will feel her heart within her, beating. She remembers that she is still alive, and tomorrow, she will wake, and she will put on her bonnet to cover her shorn head, and she will take up her needle and sit in her window, and she will smile and smile while she thinks of her little girl, thinks of her sitting warm and happy in the corner of the bakery, eating some little piece of bread that Lise has given her. 

It is enough to sustain her. It will be enough to sustain her as she sews, until the light disappears from the window, and she will need to light a candle. 

Her hands are rough now, but Fantine cannot bring herself to regret it. Lise’s hands had been rough, after all, but her heart is kind, and that, Fantine thinks, is the only thing she minds. 

 

*

 

The furniture seller glances down at the money she holds out to him, before sniffing disdainfully. “What is this, then?”

“It – it is the money I owe,” Fantine says. How can he have forgotten? He has hounded her, threatened to have her arrested. She has not been able to leave Montreuil for want of the money she still owes him. 

“The money? What money? Your debt is discharged as of three days ago.”

Fantine stares at him in bewilderment. No, no, he must be mistaken. She still owes a full twelve francs – ten, after the two she had come here today to give him – but she cannot force the words telling him so from her throat. 

Her mind frozen, she curls her fingers around the money without thinking, lowering her hand to her side. The furniture seller is not even looking at her anymore, as if the very sight of her disgusts him, and she scarcely dares to breathe, as if it will remind him of her presence. If it is a mistake, she cannot bring herself to correct him. To have her debts finally cleared means she is free.

She waits, waits for the man to turn, to laugh at her and tell her to give him the money before he calls for the police, to ask her if she thought she could trick him. But he does not – he simply busies himself with his sweeping, his back turned to her. 

Fantine takes one step back and then another, before she turns and flees the shop, her heart pounding. It is impossible – she feels that at any moment, she will be called back, or that she will wake up and find herself on her thin mattress under her coverlet, the dawn reaching the window, and her day of work yet to begin. 

_He is mistaken. He must be._

The thought runs through her head without pause, even as her feet carry her further and further from his shop. Without knowing where she plans to go, she finds herself turning in the direction of the public writer’s little shopfront.

_Without a debt, I am free. I am free. I can leave. I can go to Cosette. I can go to –_

She does not let herself think any further than that. 

_But I must write. I must write and tell Lise that I am coming._

She feels dizzy when she finally seats herself by the public writer’s desk; he looks at her crossly, his irritation plain. “You have a letter. It has been here for a week – do you want me to read it or not?”

Fantine blinks at him and, unable to find her voice, simply nods. 

She does not hear most of what he says, at any rate – the letter is from Lise, of course, for who else writes to her? – and it is only later that she is able to understand it, as she stares down at the page when she is back in her rooms, unable to make out any word, but with the letter writer’s voice still ringing in her head. _You have mentioned it is a matter of twelve francs that prevents you – I have sent it to him, since you mentioned the proprietor’s name – did not write to say, as I thought you would refuse – Cosette still asks for you – and we are doing quite well here, so I have put some small money aside – when shall I say you will come?_

When she looks at the letter again later, Fantine regrets how the ink became smudged when she curled over, pressing her face to the page, sobs wracking her body; it is a long time until she finds the strength to rise, folding the letter over and over and over again, before opening it and smoothing it flat, staring at it, and then folding it again and tucking it into her bodice, where it lies against her heart.

 

*

 

Her hair has not grown out much, and the winter is coming on again. But what does she care about that? Fantine has a bonnet to keep her head warm; she has enough money to travel. She can even take the coach service a little way, when she grows too tired to walk further.

When the time comes, she ties her bonnet to her head, packs her two pairs of stockings into her bag, and walks from Montreuil-sur-Mer without turning back. There is nothing to regret in her leaving: the only thing she had found there was cruelty, even from those who were said to be so kind. Where had this kindness been, when she had needed it? 

The letter Lise had sent her is still pressed against her, tucked inside the bodice she has done her best to mend so that she might not turn up at the bakery doorstep looking like some ragged waif; she does not know what she will do if she sees hesitation in Cosette’s face when she sees her, or disgust and pity in Lise’s. She must not let her think she intends to take anything more from her than she has already – she will work, she will do anything that is required of her, so long as she can see Cosette again.

The air is only slightly chilly – just enough to be bracing, but not enough to make her cold – but Fantine barely feels it. There is a song in her heart as she passes out of the gates of the town and onto the road beyond.

 

*

 

The sun is low in the sky when Fantine arrives in Montfermeil – she almost stumbles as she reaches the outskirts of the town, and she cannot say that it is only fatigue that made her miss her step. Her heart beats wildly within her, and for a moment she stops, wanting to sit down where she is to gather her thoughts. She feels breathless, as if her skin cannot contain her, as if the next breath she takes will be her last. 

She stands, trembling, at the end of the street, and barely dares to take another step. What if Cosette has forgotten her? What need does she have of her, in any case? She has thrived without her, her mother – but what is a mother, really? A child can live without her parents, so long as she has someone to love her – to dress her and feed her and praise her when she is good and scold her when she is naughty. Fantine lifts her hand and presses it against her chest as if trying to grasp her heart; it would be easier, she thinks, to turn now and go out onto the road again than to look into Cosette’s eyes and see how her child has no need of her. 

She almost does it – she is on the cusp of returning the way she had come when she hears someone call out, “Fantine?” and then, “It is Fantine, isn’t it?” and she turns to see Lise standing in the road, her sleeves rolled up and a little girl standing by her side, her hand wrapped in Lise’s skirts.

Fantine blinks, not quite certain she can trust her own eyes. The little girl’s blue eyes are wide, her pink cheeks full, her hair a tumble of curls too thick to be contained under her bonnet. 

_It cannot be Cosette. She was just a baby when I left her. Can she have grown so much? Can it be that –_

She does not know when she had lost her feet and fallen on her knees in the street – she does not even realise it has happened, until she hears Lise say, “Fantine!” and sees her kneeling before her, eyes wide with alarm. “Are you well? You must be tired – please, stand up, take your time – but come with me to the bakery, and we will see about getting you something to eat –”

Fantine does not respond, and she does not stand – not, at least, until she has taken Cosette into her arms and heard her say, “Maman? What is wrong?” as she presses her close to her breast and weeps.

 

*

 

The baker tells her she will have to earn her keep, but Fantine had never intended anything different – Lise sells the bread the baker bakes, and Fantine finds work sewing and cleaning in the one or two houses that can afford to have a woman come to do for them. It does not bring in much, but it is enough to keep the baker happy; on the days when she does not have work, she helps Lise in the shop, and when the working day is done, she sits with Cosette on her knees and listens to her chatter on about her day – of the little birds she saw, of the stones she overturned to look at the worms beneath. 

On summer days, Cosette sits outside, drawing in the dirt with a stick, and often the innkeeper’s eldest daughter sits with her, at least until her mother – a large, tall woman who Fantine does not mind admitting frightens her more than a little – shouts for her girl to come home before she dirties her dress.

On days when Fantine sits outside to do her mending, so that she might make the most of the summer sunlight, Lise will occasionally call to her from the shop, asking if she can hold a ladder while she fetches something down from a high shelf or run to the spring, as the baker needs water – but other times, Fantine will look up from her work, and catch sight of Lise as she talks with a customer, her large brown eyes laughing, her dark hair pulled back behind a kerchief. When she turns to fetch whatever it is the customer has asked for, or hauls a sack of flour across the room, or brings in firewood for the ovens, Fantine sometimes thinks her shoulders are very broad and that she must be very strong. It is not until she looks down again that she realises she can feel her heart beating within her, and she must stop in her sewing and find her rhythm with the needle once more. 

Sometimes, Lise will stand in the doorway and call to Cosette in order to give her a raisin or some other treat.

“You will spoil her,” Fantine says one day, laughing a little as Cosette dances away with her mouth full of dried apple.

“Who could help it?” Lise asks, shrugging and opening her hands in a gesture of futility. 

 

*

 

“Monsieur Gerard intends to leave me his shop,” Lise says one day, quite suddenly, as they are preparing for bed. “He is getting older. He has no sons. His daughter is gone away.” She hesitates. “He has been teaching me baking – though since I work in the shop, he has not much time.”

Fantine pauses in brushing her hair by the small stub of a candle they keep. It has grown again – it brushes her shoulders now and, she thinks, has regained some of its lustre. She watches Lise’s face in the small circle of her mirror and feels a chill at the sight of her downturned eyes, a fear that holds her heart and scrabbles up her throat. 

“I will – I hope you know that I will leave, if you need me to. I would not want to be a burden,” she says. “There are… other places I could go. I know I do not bring in much money, and you will want to employ someone –”

“Employ someone?” Lise looks up. “But why, when you are already here?”

Fantine feels her face burn. She looks away and cannot bring herself to look up into her mirror. “I cannot do sums,” she says, her voice very quiet. “I could not know if the customer has given me the correct money. I could not even tell them what the correct money is.”

Lise pauses, and Fantine does not dare look up.

“I do not know much about running a bakery,” Lise says. “But I think we will both have time to learn. Monsieur Gerard will not retire in less than five years. I think we could both learn a great deal in that time.”

 

*

 

Extraordinary tales come to them from Montreuil-sur-Mer: that the mayor has gone mad; that the mayor has been arrested; that the mayor was some kind of criminal all along. Fantine listens to the gossip with her head bowed, her hands busy with her sewing. She almost does not believe what she is hearing, nor that the story should have carried to her here, so far away – but then, it seems Monsieur Madeleine made such a scene in a courtroom somewhere that the tale has spread far and wide by now. 

It must be an exaggeration, she thinks, biting her lip as the innkeeper’s wife – who seems to find out everything from the travellers who stay at her husband’s inn – talks with Lise about the strange affair.

“They say he stood up and denounced himself in front of everyone, when the trial had all but been decided,” the woman says, as Fantine tries her best not to seem as though she is overly interested. “That he had been on the run for some ten years, rampaging across the countryside committing thefts and highway robberies – even against a bishop! – but had been hiding himself as a respectable man. And he had become a mayor! It shows that people are very stupid, doesn’t it? To make such a criminal mayor!”

Fantine does not pause in her sewing – she counts her stitches now, slowly, carefully, _one, two, three, four_ , and she thinks she is becoming faster at it as she goes – and tries to recall Monsieur Madeleine’s face from the few times she had seen him on the streets. Had he looked like a criminal, then? He had always seemed sad to her. She had felt very bitterly towards him after she had been sent away from his factory, but everyone in the town had loved him and said he was kind – it had made her feel the fault must be hers. Now, she does not know what she feels. Had she been turned out by a man who had been a thief all along? A man who had committed thefts – had he stood in judgement over _her?_

“And what of the man on trial?” Lise asks. “What happened to him?”

“They let him free, so they say,” the innkeeper’s wife says. “If he was not the man they wanted, they had no reason to keep him. He was no one of consequence. Some no one or other… Monsieur Thénardier, what was the man’s name again?” she calls to her husband, who is passing by.

“Champmathieu,” he says, with a disinterested air. “I remember it from the story.”

“Champmathieu? Are you certain?” 

Fantine glances up at the sound of Lise’s voice. She sounds quite strange – her voice quiet and tight. Her face has gone pale, and Fantine sees she is gripping the side of the door with knuckles that have turned white.

Lise does not say much more, and Madame Thénardier does not seem to notice the change in her – she picks up her bread, pays for it, and ambles on her way, calling to her two girls as she goes. 

“Lise?” Fantine asks, once she is certain the woman is away. “Are you well? Do you feel faint?”

Lise does not seem to have heard her, and Fantine rises, going to her and placing a hand on her arm. “Lise?”

“It is nothing,” Lise says – but then, hesitating, raises her dark brown eyes to look at Fantine. “No. No, it is not nothing. But I will explain to you… tonight. Not here.” She swallows, looking down again. “And I pray you will not think me wicked.”

 _I could never,_ Fantine wants to say, but the words catch in her throat, and she finds when she returns to her sewing she cannot count her stitches at all – she fumbles over them. In the end she lays them aside and sits with Cosette instead, smoothing her hair and kissing her forehead, until the girl wiggles away, pulling Fantine by the hand to show her some red and white mushrooms she has found. 

Later, when Monsieur Gerard has gone to bed and Cosette is sleeping soundly in her corner, Fantine sits and listens as Lise tells her of her past, of why she had blanched so at the name of Champmathieu.

“He is my father,” she says, her eyes downcast, her hands knotted in her lap. “He was a wheelwright in Paris, when I was a washerwoman there… he is only a simple man, and I have worried for him. He left Paris when he was too old for his work anymore. He said he would return. Perhaps he did. I do not know.”

Fantine wants to ask her what she means, but she holds her tongue, waiting. It is many moments until Lise begins speaking again.

“You know, I think, that in Paris I was married.” Lise’s voice is very soft. Her eyes dart up, before she looks away once more. “He was not… he was not a kind man. I bore it, as I had to. Perhaps it was fortunate I had no children, as it was easy for me to say to Monsieur Gerard, no, I am an old maid, I have never married. I leave no one behind. He would turn me out if he knew.” 

“I am sure he would not.” Fantine finds she cannot hold back any longer. She remembers the marks she had seen on Lise’s face when they had met on the road. She had known even then how she had come by them. Lise had not had to tell her. Is she shocked? She feels she should be – a woman who has abandoned her husband should be a terribly shocking thing! – but she cannot find it within herself. She recalls the face of the superintendent as she had handed her the fifty francs – and she prays to God she will never see such a look in her own eyes.

Lise does not look up. “Well. Well, he does not know. In truth, I wonder if it is wise to tell even you. Though I think you… I _pray_ that you will understand me.”

She cannot help herself – Fantine reaches forward, taking Lise’s hands in hers. Her hands are rough from work, but Lise’s are rougher still, her fingers far larger, and her wrists sturdy. “You can tell me anything,” she says, though she barely dares to raise her voice above a whisper. “Do you think that I could say anything to you, after all you have done for me? For Cosette? Even after… well, I am sure you know that I cannot say I was ever married.”

Lise swallows and remains silent as the candle flickers between them. “I think that… I think that you will understand what I mean when I say that one can only take so many blows before… well. But I did not mean to… I think I may have hurt him. I did not stay to see. But you see now why it became necessary for me to leave. I had thought to stay in Paris until my father returned. But I could not.” 

At first, Fantine cannot think what Lise means – her heart feels as if it has gone still within her. Of course, she understands her story. God knows, she has felt the same things within her breast – oh, the things she had imagined doing to the superintendent who had dismissed her, to the women who had hissed at her on the street, to Monsieur Madeleine himself! And she thinks she would have done them too, given half a chance – but she cannot say it does not frighten her a little. 

“Your father?” she asks eventually, the only words she can force past her lips.

“He was arrested,” Lise says. “Did you not hear? If he has been – if he is to take the blame for what I have done – perhaps they thought –”

“But he was set free again, was he not?” Fantine asks. She realises, perhaps, that she is being inane. But the tumble of her thoughts will not allow her to say more. “They cannot think he has done anything. So you see, there is nothing to be worried about. They do not think he has done anything. As soon as they knew he was himself, he was Champmathieu, he was set free. Isn’t that what Madame Thénardier said?” 

“I pray you are right,” Lise says. 

 

*

 

Lise writes to Arras, since that is the last place she knows her father was – she seems restless in the weeks that follow, but slowly, as it becomes more and more clear that she will receive no reply, she settles into listlessness. When she is not occupied, which is rarely, Fantine sees her sitting and staring at the road, as if she is waiting for someone to walk down it. 

“Walk with me,” Fantine says one day as the sun is setting. “We will need water for tomorrow. Those buckets are heavy, but I don’t see why we should have to pay half a farthing if we can do it ourselves.”

Cosette is in a corner, happily occupied, and so they go together, while the sun is still low in the sky, casting deep golden light through the darkness of the trees. Spring is in its dying days, and the heat feels as if it has soaked into the earth, the green of the forest drooping beneath the sun. Fantine finds herself chattering as they walk, swinging the bucket in her hand – it is easy to imagine that one is young again, she thinks, on days like this. It is not that she is so very old – why, Cosette is only eight! – but her youth is gone, and it will not return. 

The spring is cold when she dips the bucket in, her fingertips submerged where they curl around the handle. She trips when she pulls it back, however, slopping half the water over her legs and the rest on the ground, but it is so warm an evening that she does not mind – she laughs, stumbling in her wet skirts, dropping the bucket – until Lise catches her hand to steady her. It is almost summer, Fantine thinks, and she is no longer young, but she is happy. 

Lise’s fingertips are very warm on the bare skin of her wrist – her fingers encircle it easily. For a moment, Fantine can feel her heart beat wildly within her, like the wings of a bird, and for the first time since she was a child running bare-legged through the streets of Montreuil-sur-Mer, she feels something untamed within her, something she had long since thought subdued. 

She closes her eyes when Lise raises her hand to touch her face; there is the echo of something sweet within her, and she realises after a moment that it is the memory of the first time Tholomyès kissed her, one summer by a river beneath a willow tree.

It is almost with the thought of erasing that memory that she tilts her face up now, waiting, and by the time Lise’s lips touch hers, she has forgotten all about it.

 

* 

 

They have always shared the room below the attic, so it is simple for things to continue as they had before. The baker is growing deaf in his old age, and Fantine has sometimes thought – guiltily – that perhaps it is only this that has saved them from trouble. She has not always shown restraint; it is not always easy to remember when the room is in darkness, and she has found herself overtaken.

They are careful, of course, but their situation is not so uncommon that it arouses anyone’s curiosity, despite the fact that, as Fantine knows, small towns such as these run on gossip. But only once has she turned, having allowed her hand to rest perhaps a moment too long on Lise’s wrist, to see Monsieur Thénardier’s eyes upon them, narrowed and calculating – but then, he had simply smiled and turned away. All the same, the chill had not left her heart until one morning the village had awoken to find the Thénardiers had disappeared like ghosts in the night, leaving their debts behind them. 

Fantine does not want to say she is relieved, as she worries for the two girls and Cosette asks for days afterwards when ‘Ponine will return. Fantine is uncertain of what to tell her, but Cosette is resilient, and after two weeks, she stops asking, though she still asks Lise for scraps to feed the little cat the Thénardiers left behind.

 

*

 

The winter comes in and the air is chill; Monsieur Gerard grumbles and says this will be his last season and that he is too old now for the hard work of a bakery. It is Lise who now carries the sacks of flour in from the delivery cart; and if Fantine is still slow to calculate what people must pay, they are patient with her.

Cosette has adopted the cat; Fantine had wanted to tell her no, but she had known that Cosette would keep the little creature no matter what she said. She knew she was beaten when even Monsieur Gerard began giving it milk, though he denies he has ever done any such thing.

In the cold of the evening, when the shutters have been latched and Cosette is sleeping downstairs with her cat, and Monsieur Gerard has locked up for the evening and gone to bed, grumbling of the cold, Fantine sits in her room with her gently guttering candle, brushing out her hair. It is past her shoulders now – Lise walks behind her, tangling her fingers through its golden length. 

“Come to bed,” she says, and Fantine rises, smiling, and follows her.

**Author's Note:**

> Champmathieu's speech at his trial at Arras always made me so sad:
> 
> “This is what I have to say. That I have been a wheelwright in Paris, and that it was with Monsieur Baloup. It is a hard trade. In the wheelwright’s trade one works always in the open air, in courtyards, under sheds when the masters are good, never in closed workshops, because space is required, you see. In winter one gets so cold that one beats one’s arms together to warm one’s self; but the masters don’t like it; they say it wastes time. Handling iron when there is ice between the paving-stones is hard work. That wears a man out quickly. One is old while he is still quite young in that trade. At forty a man is done for. I was fifty-three. I was in a bad state. And then, workmen are so mean! When a man is no longer young, they call him nothing but an old bird, old beast! I was not earning more than thirty sous a day. They paid me as little as possible. The masters took advantage of my age—and then I had my daughter, who was a laundress at the river. She earned a little also. It sufficed for us two. She had trouble, also; all day long up to her waist in a tub, in rain, in snow. When the wind cuts your face, when it freezes, it is all the same; you must still wash. There are people who have not much linen, and wait until late; if you do not wash, you lose your custom. The planks are badly joined, and water drops on you from everywhere; you have your petticoats all damp above and below. That penetrates. She has also worked at the laundry of the Enfants-Rouges, where the water comes through faucets. You are not in the tub there; you wash at the faucet in front of you, and rinse in a basin behind you. As it is enclosed, you are not so cold; but there is that hot steam, which is terrible, and which ruins your eyes. She came home at seven o’clock in the evening, and went to bed at once, she was so tired. Her husband beat her. She is dead. We have not been very happy. She was a good girl, who did not go to the ball, and who was very peaceable. I remember one Shrove-Tuesday when she went to bed at eight o’clock. There, I am telling the truth; you have only to ask. Ah, yes! how stupid I am! Paris is a gulf. Who knows Father Champmathieu there? But M. Baloup does, I tell you. Go see at M. Baloup’s; and after all, I don’t know what is wanted of me.” 
> 
> So while this may not be a fix it for him (as far as we know), I at least wanted to give his daughter a happy ending too.


End file.
